Could you imagine if

This is a discussion on Could you imagine if within the Off Topic & Humor Discussion forums, part of the The Back Porch category; My initial thought is... Dang it! I knew I should have bought more ammo. Kidding aside, I think it would be more than our citizens ...

My initial thought is... Dang it! I knew I should have bought more ammo. Kidding aside, I think it would be more than our citizens could handle. We're broke as a nation, our military is strained, and our leadership would likely want to get on a plane and rush off to give the attackers an olive branch.

Most Americans already feel their situation is dire and the immediate outlook is bleak. Such an event would only add more fuel to the fires fanning discontent and divisiveness in our country.

Economically, the result would be near catostrophic with the current lack of direction and any unified leadership from anywhere within our country - spiritual, organizationally, and politically regardless of belief or affilliation.

If the "Terrorists" decided to do another Sept. 11th attack again on the same day I would be really, really ticked off. Not only because we have been attacked again and may have had ample advance warning but......

September 11th is my birthday and they have already ruined it once, twice is going to send me on a spree of some sort to rid the world of those who wish to make my birthday miserable again. God help them.

Rant **OFF**

No, really, I do believe that these terrorist types are currently working on some plot to hit us again. We need to have National Situational Awareness to get everyone prepared for the inevitible.

Actually while possible to evolve in to political rhetoric, its possible to talk about preparation or lack there of and the state of our nation and its citizenry to respond or handle another crisis like this should it arise.

Rather than an attack on a single target I would envision a series of attacks on major population centers similar to the Mumbai attack. Something like that would make people feel that no matter where they are there is no place safe.

If we had another attack, I would hope we could focus our retaliatory efforts ONLY on those responsible. We don't need any more 'nation-building' wars. If we keep responding as we have been (expensive wars), then the terrorists will win. Osama Bin Laden's main goal was to destroy us economically, and he's doing a pretty good job of it. Well, he was doing a good job until he had that blind date with Seal Team 6!

Nation building? I'm all for nation destroying. It's a simple concept. That whole making friends thing never worked...never will. We know where the majority of them come from and where they espouse their beliefs. Lock our borders down tighter than ...well you know. Then make the announcement. Any town outside CONUS found to have ANY actual insurgents will be given glass floors...permanently. Then follow through with it one town at a time. Continue this until there are no insurgents left or the folks in the next town see what happened to the previous one and string the buggers up themselves.

Sick and twisted? Perhaps...but so is our enemy and they will show you no mercy nor no quarter and to treat them as an honorable enemy does nothing but get you shot in the back.

What will really happen? Our leaders in their infinite wisdom will pander and apologise for a few hundred years of doing the right thing. Then we watch as our economy and our country continue to spiral out of control.

Nation building? I'm all for nation destroying. It's a simple concept. That whole making friends thing never worked...never will. We know where the majority of them come from and where they espouse their beliefs. Lock our borders down tighter than ...well you know. Then make the announcement. Any town outside CONUS found to have ANY actual insurgents will be given glass floors...permanently. Then follow through with it one town at a time. Continue this until there are no insurgents left or the folks in the next town see what happened to the previous one and string the buggers up themselves.

Sick and twisted? Perhaps...but so is our enemy and they will show you no mercy nor no quarter and to treat them as an honorable enemy does nothing but get you shot in the back.

What will really happen? Our leaders in their infinite wisdom will pander and apologise for a few hundred years of doing the right thing. Then we watch as our economy and our country continue to spiral out of control.

While I don't think breaking out the nukes is the right answer (unless we are nuked), I do think the best way to fight terror is with terror. Nothing says stop bothering me like a 2000lb JDAM through your window on a warm summer night. The US has the ultimate terror weapon, the B2. Let 'em rip.

If we experience another event like 9/11, then we as a nation, will do whatever it is that we need to do. When Somali pirates captured an American ship, we took it back. Osama Bin Laden is dead. He didn't escape. He didn't get away with it. It took awhile, too long in the opinion of many, but we persisted, we persevered, and we got him. Khadafi is next. It's just a matter of time.

At some point, it will become readily apparent to every terrorist and tin pot dicator that we are the United States of America. Regardless of which political party is in power or who is the President, we do what we have to do. It may take us awhile but we have a long memory.

I think America, in general, is too demoralized to go through another attack with any sense of pride or fighting spirit like we had in response to 9/11.

We were angry. We were strong. We wanted to kick butt!

Now we are scared, hurting, weak, poor and wondering how we are going to put gas in our tanks and keep our homes.

The families of the victims would be devastated. The nation would be angry and outraged and while there might be an outcry to do something I think anything that would be done would not be in earnest.

There would be a lot of sad talk. There would be a few "fighting terrorism" speeches. Maybe even a few missions and deployments, but in the end I don't think we'd get very far and I don't think your general American population would expect us to either. Americans have seen what the "war on terror" has cost us over the last ten years and they are weary in every way a nation can be weary.

I think another attack would usher in a great depression (both economically and psychologically) not seen since 1929.

Americans are now fickle, and with very short attention spans. I was talking to some folks the other day, and they said that they weren't going to watch any of the 9/11 shows for the 10th Anniversary, or really do anything really. They said it would make them too sad to do so. They thought that forgetting the sacrifices of over 6,000 of their countrymen (Between 9/11, OIF, and OEF), was perfectly acceptable, because being reminded of it would make them sad. I think that is pretty damn disgusting myself, but maybe I am in the minority of Americans. I also know when Pearl Harbor Day, and the anniversary of the Beruit bombing are too.

"Some folks" are . They want the bad things to go away and vote for leaders who console their wishes and take their freedom in the bargain. But we aren't our lowest common denominator. Some of us remember: "Don't tread on me". We have a strong core, in spite of popular diversions.

I think that it is important to note a distinct difference in the gestalt of normal people and terrorists who strike without an exit stategy, without a viable political system, without respect for life - their target's or their own. So different is this view from the inspiration of, ofr example, the American experience, that the world demands answers. Not just politically, but in our soul.

Originally Posted by packinnova

That whole making friends thing never worked...never will. We know where the majority of them come from and where they espouse their beliefs.... Any town outside CONUS found to have ANY actual insurgents will be given glass floors...permanently. Then follow through with it one town at a time. Continue this until....
Sick and twisted? Perhaps...but so is our enemy and they will show you no mercy nor no quarter and to treat them as an honorable enemy does nothing but get you shot in the back.

What will really happen? Our leaders in their infinite wisdom will pander and apologise for a few hundred years of doing the right thing. Then we watch as our economy and our country continue to spiral out of control.

Our economy is not in control of any but ourselves. The reason that we stayed in Iraq was our bombing of Baghdad and other cities and destruction of infrastructure necessary for a modern, functioning country. See, history lesson here, that the spoils of victory are multiplied exponentially in a peaceful, orderly, society with functional channels of internaional distribution.

Originally Posted by limatunes

I think another attack would usher in a great depression (both economically and psychologically) not seen since 1929.

The last Great Depression didn't work well for Nazism nor Nippon Facism because Americans can and do respond to a any threat - especially on home soil. What goes around comes around. Just because the politicos make our lives complicated don't think the good ol' USA is gonna sit down and take it.

A favorite quote from Jefferson in his, and our, Declaration of Independence

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Anyone stopped to wonder why we are only talking about this on the TENTH anniversary? Where were the worriers and concerned folks on anniverseries 2-9? Sure as a culture the 10th is symbolic, but there doesn't seem to have been too much concern on Sept. 11 2002-2010.

Personally I have thought about it happening every single year since then on that same day. This one is no different to me. I promise you all here that if we are attacked on Sept. 11, 2012, it will carry no less importance/weight than if it happened in 10 days from now.

It's like people that mourn or bring to light the life/death of a political figure or a fireman or police officer more than your mother or father or child. Which life was more important? One life doesn't trump another. I see bodies everyday and they are all the same. Dead. 3000 lives on Sept. 11, 2011 wouldn't trump 3000 lives on Sept. 11, 2012.